‘Tofu and silicon and dyed hair’: Republicans gang up on California

LOS ANGELES — Republicans have found their boogeyman for the midterm elections: California.

Long a fixture in America’s culture wars, the solidly blue state has served before as a punchline for conservatives. But now, with Democrats out of power in Washington, Republicans are increasingly looking West to find their foil — invoking California in an effort to depict Democrats as feckless and out of touch.

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President Donald Trump conjured up California’s leftist nightmare last week, at a rally in Montana, portraying the state’s politics as antithetical to “common sense.” Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) has jokingly suggested building a wall along her state’s border with California to guard against its “dangerous policies.” Adam Laxalt, the Republican candidate for governor of Nevada, spun opposition to California values into a central thread of his campaign.

The hell that beckons if Republicans fail?

"They want us to be just like California, right down to tofu and silicon and dyed hair,” said Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, warning a crowd of supporters over the weekend about Democrats’ true intentions.

Our must-read briefing on politics and government in the Golden State.

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He added, “Not on our watch.”

The anti-California rhetoric now ratcheting up represents a subtle shift from past practice, when Hollywood, San Francisco and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi frequently came in for criticism — at least as much as the state as a whole.

The broadened criticism reflects the more partisan profile that California cuts now as the beachheadof the anti-Trump Democratic resistance.

“You have Hollywood and Silicon Valley, which are two lightning rods right now,” said Chuck DeVore, a former California lawmaker who now lives in Texas and works at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “You have a high-profile governor in Jerry Brown, who is probably one of the best-known governors in the country … You can go back and look at people talking about ‘San Francisco values,’ too, and that’s been around for a while. I just think that [criticizing California] is probably taking on a greater import in terms of trying to crystallize in the mind’s eye of voters what’s at stake.”

Trump, who was beaten badly by Hillary Clinton in California in 2016, set the tone soon after his inauguration, when he said that California “in many ways is out of control.” For more than a year, he hasn’t let up, lambasting the state for its progressive immigration and climate change legislation, calling Rep. Maxine Waters an “extraordinarily low IQ person,” referring to Rep. Adam Schiff as “one of the biggest liars and leakers in Washington” and painting Waters and Pelosi as the hapless “face of the Democratic Party.”

Last month, Trump bewildered water experts when he said California water regulations contributed to worsening wildfires in the state. And at a rally in Billings, Montana, last week, Trump pointed to California as Exhibit A for Democratic overreach on issues ranging from immigration to health care and education.

“What happens, I said, if the entire world decides to go to California because they get free health care, free medical care and free education?” he said. “Look, it’s all about common sense, right?”

For Trump’s own reelection prospects, California offers a convenient target — a singular antagonist that will remain easier to hit than any one Democratic challenger before the field of candidates begins to thin. And if Sen. Kamala Harris, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti or any other Californian gains momentum in 2020, Republicans’ sullying of the state could prove damaging in a general election.

“We’re the big, 800-pound gorilla that everybody loves to hate,” said Garry South, a longtime Democratic strategist in California. “California is outside the standard deviation of the rest of the country … That is not necessarily an advantage when someone from California goes out into the hinterlands of the country running for president of the United States.”

Dustin Burrows, a Texas state representative, said of California, “That’s a set of politics that we’re trying not to import.”

In their efforts to knock down California, Republicans are tapping into an existing vein of resentment. According to a 2012 poll by Public Policy Polling, California was viewed more negatively by Americans than any other state, especially among Republicans.

Earlier this year, Republicans pilloried Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri for raising money in Beverly Hills, while opponents of a renewable energy initiative in Arizona made California-specific warnings in their campaign. And nowhere is animosity for California more evident than in neighboring Nevada.

At his primary election victory speech in June, a crowd of supporters roared when Laxalt vowed to thwart a “radical agenda that would take our unique state the way of California.” Soon after, Laxalt aired an ominous television ad accusing his Democratic opponent, Steve Sisolak, of enabling the “radical left” and the “fanatical resistance movement.”

“That might work in California, Mr. Sisolak,” the narrator said in the ad, closing the spot. “But not in Nevada.”

Laxalt campaign spokesman Parker Briden said rejecting California values “is something that connects with people on a very personal level” and that it “has become a refrain on the campaign.”

From taxes and government regulations to California lawmakers’ recent debate about banning plastic straws, he said, “That just makes people shake their heads.”

The Nevada Democratic Party’s Helen Kalla said that Laxalt “is resorting to boogeyman campaign tactics because he knows he’s out of touch with Nevadans and can’t win on the issues.” And Andres Ramirez, a Nevada-based Democratic strategist, said Laxalt’s harping on California suggests that he is still worried about motivating Republican voters.

“Otherwise,” Ramirez said, givenNevada’s economic and cultural ties to its much larger, neighboring state, “it makes no sense from a strategic standpoint to be alienating so many people.”

In fact, the utility of California as a rallying cry has tended to ebb and flow. Even Cruz, who drew widespread attention for his recent “tofu” remarks — and questions about whether he meant to say “silicon” or “silicone” — once expressed more appreciation for California.

Running for president in 2016 and yoking himself to the legacy of Ronald Reagan, Cruz predicted at an Orange County rally that year that California would decide the Republican nomination — before dropping out of the race.

“This is the birthplace of the Reagan revolution,” he said. “And let me tell you, there’s a new revolution brewing. And just like in 1980, it’s going to be California that’s going to decide, California that’s going to lead the way.”

Now, with Cruz, Trump and other Republicans dumping on California, Democrats largely roll their eyes. In an interview, Brown acknowledged that demonizing California “appeals to a certain Republican base. They like that.”

But the four-term governor dismissed Republicans’ rhetoric as “more politics,” lamenting a political climate where “instead of a public debate, we have the kind of low comity” of engagement based on “caricature” and “fear.”

Former California Gov. Gray Davis said “part of this may be envy, part of this may be some odd form of flattery.” But he suggested that by one measure, it marks a success for his state.

Noting Trump’s fondness for publicity, Davis said, “By Trump’s standard, we’re getting very high marks, because he’s talking about us a lot.”